This invention relates to an automatic sewing machine control apparatus for forming seams by driving and controlling a cloth holding down portion for use in clamping an article to be sewn.
In order to stitch desired sewing patterns using industrial sewing machines, sewing data corresponding to the sewing patterns is prepared and information for driving the sewing machines in accordance with the order of performing sewing operations is held in storage media such as floppy disks. While cloth as an article to be sewn is press-clamped according to the sewing data (information on sewing methods), a predetermined sewing pattern is automatically stitched by moving the cloth on a predetermined plane.
The sewing data includes a relative position displacement quantity between a machine needle per stitch for forming the sewing pattern and the cloth, and control commands for controlling the sewing machine and a motor for driving the machine. The sewing data on one sewing pattern is formed as a collection of data per stitch.
A conventional automatic sewing machine will be described with reference to FIGS. 7 and 8. In FIGS. 7 and 8, an automatic sewing machine 1 comprises an interlocking motor 2 for vertically operating a machine needle 8 via a belt 4, a cloth hold-down portion 10 for use in clamping cloth 12 as an article to be sewn mounted on a machine table 1a, a switchgear 18 such as a cylinder, for example, for opening and closing the cloth hold-down portion 10 used for attaching and detaching the cloth 12, and a biaxial driving mechanism 20 for moving the cloth 12 in the two axial directions X and Y together with the cloth hold-down portion 10.
The biaxial driving mechanism 20 has an origin detector 21 for detecting the mechanical origin of the cloth hold-down portion 10 and is so arranged as to be moved in two axial directions of X and Y as an X- and a Y-axis motor 24 and 26 each having stepping motors are driven, the sprockets of the respective X- and Y-axis motors 24 and 26 being put on a belt.
A control portion 30 includes CPU 32 for use in controlling cloth feeding as well as the motor speed in the sewing machine, ROM 34 for storing a procedure for executing the system of the CPU 32, RAM 36 for storing the sewing data prepared in an operating portion 50, a driving portion 40 for driving motors, and an interface 42 for electrically connecting the origin detector 21 and the operating portion 60.
The operating portion 50 includes numeric keys 52 for inputting lengths of sewing seams, a group of setting keys 54 for designating a sewing start point and the like, a group of sewing condition setting keys 56 as kinds-of-seams inputting means for inputting idle feeding and kinds of seams such as linear, arcuate, circular seams and the like, and inching keys 58 for inching the cloth hold-down portion 10 on the X- and Y-axis, including an X-axis and a Y-axis inching key for inching the biaxial driving mechanism 20 on the X- and Y-axis. Further, the operating portion 50 has a coordinate operating portion for obtaining X and Y coordinate values by increasing and decreasing the number of pulses from the inching keys, and a display portion 60 formed of a liquid crystal display for displaying the X- and Y-axis coordinate values.
The operation of the automatic sewing machine thus arranged will be described with reference to FIGS. 7 to 11. In a case where pocket cloth 13 as a sewing object is sewn to the cloth 12 so as to attain Axe2x86x92Bxe2x86x92Cxe2x86x92Dxe2x86x92E sewing points from the origin by idle feedings shown in FIG. 9, there follow the steps of operating the X-Y driving mechanism 20 as shown in FIG. 10 via the driving portion 40 to generate pulse commands by depressing the X- and Y-axis inching xc2x1keys, making the coordinate operating portion compute the coordinate values of Xa and Ya at the point A according to the pulse command by moving the machine needle 8 from the origin to the position of the point A, and storing the coordinate values in the RAM 36 by depressing the setting key.
Similarly, there also follow the steps of, as shown in FIG. 10, operating the X-Y driving mechanism 20 by depressing the X- and Y-axis inching keys to operate the X-Y driving mechanism 20 to position the machine needle 8 at the point B, depressing the setting key and the linear sewing key to store the coordinate values of Xb and Yb and the kind of sewing in the RAM 36, then positioning the machine needle 8 at the point C, and depressing the setting key and the linear sewing key to store the coordinate values of Xc and Yc and the kind of sewing in the RAM 36. The coordinate values at the points D and E are stored in the RAM 36 likewise.
As the automatic sewing machine control apparatus has thus been arranged, the sewing patterns have been stored in the RAM 36 with the operator""s operation of the biaxial driving mechanism 20 to actuate the X and Y motors 8 and 9 by depressing the X- and Y-axis inching keys and the like when sewing data is newly input to and stored in the RAM 36. However, it is impossible for the biaxial driving mechanism 20 to move quickly as the X and Y motors 8 and 9 only operate intermittently, which necessitates a great deal of time to prepare the sewing pattern data. In particular, when a large amount of data is input, a large amount of time is necessary for processing the data.
As the automatic sewing machine control apparatus has thus been arranged, the sewing patterns have been stored in the RAM 36 with the operator""s operation of the biaxial driving mechanism 20 to actuate the X and Y motors 8 and 9 by depressing the X- and Y-axis inching keys and the like when sewing data is newly input to and stored in the RAM 36. However, it is impossible for the biaxial driving mechanism 20 to move quickly as the X and Y motors 8 and 9 only operate intermittently, which necessitates a great deal of time to prepare the sewing pattern data. Particularly when a large amount of data is input, there has developed a problem from causing a good long time therefor to be taken.
In view of the above problems, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an automatic sewing machine control apparatus which reduces the work of arranging an article to be sewn.
An object of the present invention made to solve the foregoing problems is to provide an automatic sewing machine control apparatus which is intended to reduce the work of arranging an article to be sewn.
In order to accomplish the object above, an automatic sewing machine control apparatus in the first aspect of the invention comprises: kinds-of-seams inputting means for inputting idle feeding and kinds of seams such as linear, arcuate, circular seams and the like corresponding to the seam pattern of an article to be sewn, a cloth hold-down portion for clamping the article, a machine needle which is interlocked with a driving motor for use in sewing the article, a biaxial driving mechanism allowing the cloth hold-down portion to be manually moved in both X- and Y-axis directions perpendicularly intersecting each other, an X- and a Y-axis motor for driving the biaxial driving mechanism, rotational angle detection means for detecting the rotational angles of the X- and Y-axis motors, X and Y coordinate value computing means for obtaining the coordinate values of X and Y from the origin of the biaxial driving mechanism according to the values detected by the rotational angle detection means, storage means for storing the X and Y coordinate values obtained by the X and Y coordinate computing means by manually moving the biaxial driving mechanism to at least more than one predetermined position of the machine needle, and forming means for receiving the predetermined position thereof and forming a seam pattern corresponding to the kind of the seam received from the kinds-of-seams inputting means.
An automatic sewing machine control apparatus in the second aspect of the invention comprises: storage means for storing the values of at least two of the reference coordinates, a cloth hold-down portion for clamping a sewing line beforehand or a sewing article to be sewn displaying at least two points forming the sewing line, a machine needle which is interlocked with a driving motor for use in sewing the article, a biaxial driving mechanism allowing the cloth hold-down portion to be moved in both X- and Y-axis directions perpendicularly intersecting each other, an X- and a Y-axis motor for driving the biaxial driving mechanism, rotational angle detection means for detecting the rotational angles of the X- and Y-axis motors, X- and Y-axis coordinate value computing means, means for computing the values of tilting X- and Y-coordinates of the start and designate points on the basis of the rotational angles detected by the rotational angle detection means by moving the biaxial driving mechanism between at least two any given sewing line of the sewing article clamped by the cloth hold-down portion or otherwise moving the biaxial driving mechanism in between the two points of the sewing article, means for computing the tilting values obtained from the of the X- and Y-coordinates, and modifying means for modifying the tilting of the sewing pattern according the value obtained from the tilting computing means.
An automatic sewing machine control apparatus in the third aspect of the invention in addition to the second aspect thereof includes storage means which has been stored with sewable coordinates showing an area where sewing is possible, and decision means for deciding whether or not each of the modified coordinates of the sewing pattern generated by the modifying means is within the sewable coordinate values.